BOSTON—Doc Rivers spent much of the past two days offering up praise for Minnesota Timberwolves star forward Kevin Love, a guy he called one of the great rebounders of our era.

Before the Timberwolves suited up to play the Boston Celtics on Wednesday, Rivers compared Love to former teammate and Hall of Famer Dennis Rodman, who led the NBA in rebounding seven consecutive years.

"I played with, I think, one of the greatest rebounders of all time, Dennis Rodman, and it was a joy watching him work," Rivers said. "They study the game, they have great instincts, they have great body position. He does it completely different in a lot of ways than Dennis did it. Dennis, especially late in his career, was still a great rebounder and didn't jump as much. So you just watch how they got their body in the right position all the time.

"I watched Kevin this summer, and I said it during the Olympic coverage, he reminded me a lot of that, because they make breaks before the ball hits the rim. It's like they know where the ball is going."

Of course, the Timberwolves spent the season's first nine games without Love, who broke a hand while doing push-ups in his home in October. Since his return to the lineup, Love has been every bit the rebounder he was before the injury, averaging 14.4 per game.

But Love is much more than a rebounder. He averaged 17.3 points while shooting 36.1 percent from the 3-point line in his career.

The Timberwolves rely on those aspects of Love's game almost as much as they lean on his rebounding. And when it comes to offense, it is obvious that Love just is not there yet.

In Wednesday's loss to the Celtics, Love had 19 points with 13 rebounds and four assists, but was 6-for-15 from the field (1-for-5 from the 3-point line and 6-for-12 from the free-throw line) with five turnovers.

That puts Love at 36.1 percent shooting from the field and 19.6 percent from the 3-point line, well below his career averages.

After the game, Love quickly admitted that the hand is bothering him, but added that he didn't think the injury would linger.

"I hope not, I think that a lot of it is me getting my legs back, getting in the weight room," Love said. "But when I shoot, it feels like the ball is coming off the outside of my hand rather than these two fingers (index and middle) where I like it. Something will give eventually. I still feel confident shooting it, and I'm still going to shoot those shots. Eventually, it's going to get there, but it's just going to take a little time."

The conditioning aspect of being back on the floor is understandable. But Love has not gotten the right feeling in his hand back.

"I think it's touch," he said. "You know, I've been shooting the ball for what, 18 years of my life now? It's just the hand being so idle, and having to strengthen and getting the ball to feel right in my hand has been such a struggle as of getting back on the court a couple weeks ago. So it's definitely a struggle right now, and on top of just being fatigued and just getting my legs back underneath me. It's been tough."

Tough, indeed. This has been the story of the season for the Timberwolves, who came into this fall with high expectations after shuttling out underachievers (Wesley Johnson, Wayne Ellington, Darko Milicic, Michael Beasley, Anthony Randolph) and replacing them with ready-to-perform players of all experience levels — veteran forward Andrei Kirilenko, swingman Chase Budinger, unretired former star Brandon Roy, Russian rookie Alexey Shved, Celtics castoff Greg Steimsma, journeymen Lou Admundson and Dante Cunningham.

Credit the T-wolves with having good foresight in bringing in some of those players. But pity them for needing to rely on them way more than expected. That's because in addition to Love's injury, the T-wolves also knew they had wait on point guard Ricky Rubio, who tore an ACL in February, leaving a promising team almost unrecognizable in his absence.

They lost Budinger to knee surgery, Roy to a recurring knee problem and are without Kirilenko, who has back spasms. Only three players—Shved, Cunningham and point guard Luke Ridnour—have played in every game this season, and coach Rick Adelman has used seven different starting lineups, none more than five times.

"We are just trying to find out about ourselves like so many teams in this league," Adelman said. "We have had so many injuries early in the year that guys have had opportunities to play. … In this league, you need guys to step up. It really helps us to know these guys can step up and play."

Yes, the T-wolves have had several guys step up and play. Now if they could only get their struggling star forward to do the same.